Poetry, music, fire!
Who’d of thought a quiet little writers’ festival panel about poetry and music (Reading Music) would be so full of discord – clanking symbols, a low note sounding beneath some of the words, loud feedback from the audience… It was quite exciting, and Classic FM’s Emma Ayres did a solid job as conductor. On the panel were poets Les Murray, August Kleinzahler, and πO; and author/pianist Anna Goldsworthy.
The panel began with some questions around music and influence. Anna Goldsworthy’s breakthrough pieces included Chopin (and we were treated to some Chopin over the speakers later – where I became quite melancholy and lost); August Kleinzahler’s siblings played badly; πO got all his early music off the jukebox – a combo of Greek music and rock ‘n’ roll; Les Murray enjoyed music as live performance as a child but as he grew the radio became ‘just noise’ and actually turned him off music a bit. Goldsworthy noted then, that there’s a difference between hearing and ‘listening’, though, to which all nodded.
The questions was raised re pulse (which in my notes looks like pube, heh) rhythm, cadence, melody – some properties of music and how they apply to the work. Murray doesn’t consciously use any musical tools like this, but ‘does it by touch’ and when he later read a poem about bats, imitating the sounds of their way of seeing, it was certainly musical. Kleinzahler has been ‘stimulated by a piece of music’, but many things come into the mix when he’s writing – music, musac (that’s popular, noise music), visual arts, emotional states and more. πO demonstrated the way rock and blues came into his work by performing a fantastic poem about work (to which Kleinzahler tapped his foot). It was here I first noticed a kind of antithesis between πO and Les Murray – it seems πO resented something Murray once wrote about ‘ethnic’ writing… and admitted they were on ‘different planes’.
But πO also disagreed with any suggestion of raw talent, of genius – he said it’s all hard work. He said you ‘bathe’ in influences, yes, you learn, but you go through that and then you work hard. Kleinzahler did not agree (tapping πO on the leg). He said ‘you can persist all you like, but if you don’t have talent you’ll persist until you disappear’. What do you guys think?
The last bit of conflict came from an audience member, who, on the way in gave us flyers about a deceased poet whose works had been turned into song. He put up his hand and criticised the panel for not mentioning ‘rhyme’ and folk music – which he said is poetry sang. πO thought he was being very reductive (I think most of the audience agreed). And I’m not sure he really did his friend on the flyers a favour by being so cranky.
So, an entertaining song and dance. And it was a treat to hear each of them read such different, definitely rhythmic, pieces.
Posted on 3 September 2010, in MWF events and tagged Anna Goldsworthy, August Kleinzahler, Les Murray, music, Pi O, poetry. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
‘you can persist all you like, but if you don’t have talent you’ll persist until you disappear’ and ‘you work hard’
Hmmmm. Both statements are a bit reductive. One seems to imply that you have to be one of the lucky ones already earmarked for fame because you’re somehow born talented. The other gives credence to ‘going through’ a process (presumably, until you crack it) and then you work hard at it and that will get you over the line.
(I hate the word ‘talented’, it applies to anyone who’s good at what they do, from chefs to pianists, to painters, to comedians. And writers.)
To what do writers really attribute their success: ‘talent’, inspiration, hard work, etc but a hell of a lot of it has to do with luck. I’d like to see a panel comprised of dead writers whose work was recognised as being great posthumously and they’ll probably tell you they weren’t in the right place at the right time. Before a writer on a panel talks about only the talented making it, ask them to remember how it came about that they first came to a publisher’s attention, kept that attention and then got published.
Betcha they’ll tell you that THAT was hard work!
In regard to the above, let me tell you a story.
Each week, Henri de Toulouse Lautrec hosted a soiree to which he invited the circle of painters, socialites and others of his Parisienne, amongst whom Ambroise Vollard, art dealer, publisher and fine-print producer of, amongst others Picasso’s famed ‘Vollard Suite’ of etchings.
To these evenings came also Vincent Van Gogh, who used to bring his latest painting, set it up on an easel in the salon and sit waiting for someone to comment.
In his memoir, Vollard found it most amusing to recall that everyone was in cohoots to absolutely ignore him, and poor Vincent after a time of sitting there in silence, wold pack up and go home, never having sold a picture to a collector in his life.
He’s laughing now I suppose . . .
Hi Maryanne, thanks for sharing! I always find those stories terribly sad – when an artist/writer etc. never really got to know what their work would mean in times to come. And Van Gogh – wow. Visited the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. I didn’t realise how bright and breathtaking Sunflowers would be.
Hi Angela.
Van Gogh’s work is engaging because each work is a vibrant universe unto itself, the act of painting fully manifest in each stroke of the brush. You actually see the artist at work. Look at ‘Starry Night’ and the very sky is shaped around the stars and the poplars and the whole engages you in a swirling, churning wholeness of surface that other artists did not strive to achieve. The same with ‘Sunflowers’ where the flowers, leaves, the vase and the surrounding atmosphere are each literally shaped around the other. Wonderful stuff!
The Van Gogh story always gets people’s attention, particularly since later sensibilities have come to factor in the romantic notion of The Troubled Genius spurned in his time only to be greatly appreciated later. Virginia Woolf is another whose contribution was discussed in another session at the MWF as having added a new voice to literature, that of woman as writer.
Edvard Munch is another painter whose process you can see (he’s my favourite).
And yes, I really enjoyed Sophie Cunningham on V Woolf – the things she noted about her influential style.
Who’d have thought a mwf piece would start with the most incredible grammatical error: “who’d of …”?
And “the questions WAS raised…”?
PLEASE!
Otherwise pretty interesting piece.
What a superficial analysis, not to mention an absolutely disgraceful composition. Did the author even read this piece before pressing ‘publish’? Honestly, it read like a second grader’s recount of a school excursion, bad grammar and all.
JJ said it – PLEASE!
HARSH!
I’d like to see what you guys could whip up in the quick break between festival sessions. Perhaps a rhyming poem?